The Curse of Immortality
by AnkhSu
Summary: 4th Doc When the Sisterhood of Karn is attacked, they must call on the Doctor for help. But is he already too late? Kind of a continuation of 'Brain of Morbius'.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Anything recognizable is property of the BBC. I don't own _Doctor Who_ and I don't make a cent off of this.

Author's Note: This is kind of a continuation of the episode 'Brain of Morbius' and is set between 'The Invasion of Time' and 'The Ribos Operation'.

**The Curse of Immortality**

_Prologue_

"Sacred flame… Sacred flame… Sacred flame…"

On and on the chanting went. The circle of priestesses writhed and moved with the hissing rhythm, gathering and building their collective will toward their goal. Sitting in the middle was Ohica, the high priestess, staring intently into the smoke of the lit candle she was holding. She felt the power of her sisters building inside of her, but it was still not enough.

"Try harder, sisters," Ohica commanded. The chanting became faster, louder, and harsher as the women focused with greater force.

Ohica tried to ignore the sound of banging on the outer doors of the temple. The many doors that separated the remaining members of the Sisterhood of Karn from the intruders would buy the priestesses some time. Ohica only hoped that it would be enough.

She felt the power build up more rapidly inside her. Just a little more… then she could connect…

A loud band almost broke her concentration. The intruders had broken though the thick, wooden outer doors.

"Almost, sisters," she urged the women on, urgency creeping into her usually authoritative voice.

BANG! The second set of doors was breached within seconds of the first. The women would be found in minutes if they remained here. Found and slaughtered, like most of their sisters already had been mere days ago.

Ohica saw something in the smoke. "Yes! I can almost connect!" she cried. Just a little more…

Another crash. The third set of doors was gone. Now Ohica could hear their footsteps. Just two more sets of doors and they would find the priestesses.

Ohica felt like she was going to burst with the energy built up inside of her. She was so close to making the connection, she could feel it. The image in the smoke became clearer and clearer. Ohica concentrated all the built up power on the image, willing it to become clear and to see her. The image took shape and color, and became a pair of blue eyes. Their gaze wandered, taking no notice of Ohica or of anything really. They seemed preoccupied with something unseen.

"See me," Ohica said to the eyes. Her tone was authoritative and stern. "Listen to me. You must listen to me."

The eyes suddenly became alert, and looked straight at Ohica. The connection was made.

_The Sisterhood needs your help_, Ohica sent the thought out over the mental link. _There is little time. Hurry._

Just as quickly as it was established, the connection was broken. The eyes faded back into the smoke, and Ohica extinguished the flame. The power spent making the link almost drained her, and she was worn from it, but she didn't let it show. She couldn't let it show, not when she and her followers were so close to certain death.

"Enough, sisters," she said to the group. The chanting stopped and the women got to their feet. The crash of the third set of doors made a few jump. Ohica knew that they would be as exhausted from the effort as she was, but she couldn't allow them the luxury of rest. They knew this as well.

"We must make haste," Ohica commanded. "Follow me."

She led the group a secret hatchway in the floor. As the last woman through closed the door behind her, Ohica took one of the many torches that lined the dark hallway aloft and looked upon the priestesses.

"Move quietly," she whispered. "And quickly. The rest are waiting for us at the foot of the mountain. Fiammetta and Pele," she indicated the two priestesses at the back. "Extinguish the torches as we go. We can't give our enemies any advantage. Let's go."

As she led her followers on, she felt in her pouch the key to the sacred flame. Without it no one could tamper with the flame or the Elixir of Life. Both would be safe for the time being; the intruders couldn't destroy the Sisterhood without destroying the reason for their existence. Try as they might, the intruders would not be able to get to the flame or the Elixir without the key. Ohica knew this, and this gave her hope. The Sisterhood was not lost yet. Maren's sacrifice would not be in vain.

She could hear heavy footsteps above her. Some loose rocks and dirt came loose and sprinkled onto the retreating sisters. Ohica remembered the ones who have already fallen in the Sisterhood's battle with these intruders. Some of the girls slaughtered had all the potential to become powerful priestesses; there might have even been a future high priestess among them. Ohica's eyes darkened at the thought of the circumstances of their deaths. Their sacrifice would not be in vain either; Ohica would make sure of it.

"High one," Ohica's second in command, Shula, whispered to her superior. "What if he decided not to come to our aide? We have not thought of this possibility."

"True Shula," Ohica whispered back. "But time would not allow us to consider the possibility. However, I believe that the likelihood of him refusing is very slim."

"And if he does?"

Ohica looked at the younger woman. "Then we will continue to fight. Either way, we must not give up. Think of our sisters who have already died. Should their deaths be for nothing?"

Shula nodded her understanding and retreated a few steps back. Ohica led on, not allowing herself time to mull over the scenario that her second in command suggested. First she must get her sisters to safety, and then they will plan for worst case scenarios.

Ohica sped up a little, wanting to get her followers to safety as quickly as possible. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the intruders found their escape route. The sooner they were away from here, the better. They were too little of a force to fight the intruders now. All that mattered at that moment was survival and escape.

Ohica only hoped that her message reached its destination.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Anything recognizable is property of the BBC. I don't own _Doctor Who_ and I don't make a cent off of this.

**The Curse of Immortality**

_Chapter 1_

Somewhere in time and space a blue police box, otherwise known as a TARDIS, spun aimlessly through the Space-Time Vortex, waiting for a place to land. Inside this TARDIS a lone Time Lord wandered aimlessly through the endless corridors, waiting for an idea of where to land.

It has been a week since the Doctor had left Gallifrey, and in doing so leaving Leela and K-9. At first he had enjoyed being on his own, having the TARDIS to himself again. No curious companion asking him what he meant by various technical jargon, no worrying about another person on an alien planet, and no smug robot dog correcting every little thing the Doctor did. For the first few days he enjoyed this new found freedom. By the fourth day the silence of the TARDIS started to get to him, so he had taken to talking to himself more frequently. By the sixth day the sound of his own voice was starting to annoy him.

Today the Doctor had finally gotten bored. Very bored. Hence his purposeless wandering through the TARDIS.

"Ack!" he cried as he entered the console room, tripping over a discarded panel of the new K-9 unit's body casing. The whole room was littered with pieces of K-9 Mark II; an earlier attempt of the Doctor's to alleviate the intense boredom. All it ended up accomplishing was a broken speech circuit and a burnt scarf. After that the Doctor had decided that it was best to find something else to preoccupy himself with before he ended up smashing the thing to pieces out of frustration.

Twelve hours later, he was back in the console room, rubbing his newly bruised shin and glaring at the offending casing. Even when disassembled K-9 still somehow managed to retain an air of smugness, the Doctor thought.

"If you're going to be like that," he scowled the scattered robot dog. "Then I may just leave you like this."

At the back of his mind he knew that it was rather foolish of him to threaten a robot pet that wasn't even assembled yet, but he didn't particularly care at the moment. He was bored stiff; anything that distracted him from that fact was good in his book.

Deciding to have another go at his earlier project, he picked up K-9's head from where it was lying on the console and looked it over. From the place where the neck would join dangled the broken speech circuit. The Doctor frowned. The repair job called for very delicate and precise work.

"Like repairing a computer with a sledge hammer," he muttered under his breath, not looking forward to the job ahead of him. Picking up his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor took up the task yet again.

_See me…_

The Doctor shook his head. He didn't know where that thought came from, but quickly summed it up to a bored consciousness and chose to ignore it.

_Listen to me. You must listen to me._

Suddenly the console room was gone. Everywhere he looked the Doctor could only see an endless black void. He became aware that he couldn't even feel his own body, as if his mind had become detached from it. At the back of his mind he realized that he was receiving a very powerful telepathic message, and the question of who from was nagging at him.

He had little time to mull over or do anything about this when a very faint image presented itself before him. The image was mostly red, and when he looked hard enough he could make out the shape of a woman. As she spoke, the image became clearer until the Doctor could make out who it was.

_The Sisterhood needs your help. There is little time. Hurry._

As quickly as it came, the image was gone. The console room snapped back into view as if nothing had happened. The Doctor found himself lying on the floor and with a splitting headache. Slowly he got to his feet, feeling a little weak.

_Obviously not believers of subtlety_, the Doctor thought, rubbing his head. It had been many years since his last encounter with the Sisterhood of Karn, when he helped them to defeat Morbius. Still, he remembered them well and had recognized Ohica in the vision.

"They probably need help with the chimney again," he said to himself, recalling his last visit. However, the sheer force of the message told him that the situation was a little more urgent than some soot build-up. At least, he hoped so.

_Or else Ohica has a lot of explaining to do_, he thought. _You don't use that much mental force for a message to merely say 'fix our fireplace'_.

To his dismay the Doctor noticed that, during his journey to the floor, he had dropped K-9's head and the speech circuit he had meant to repair, thus damaging it further. Glumly, he decided to save himself the bother and made a mental note to himself to find a replacement. Placing the head on the console, he began plugging the coordinates in for Karn.

"It's something to do at least, isn't it K-9?" he said to the robotic head with a grin.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Anything recognizable is property of the BBC. I don't own _Doctor Who_ and I don't make a cent off of this.

**The Curse of Immortality**

_Chapter 2_

"Just as how I left it," the Doctor muttered to himself as he stepped out of the TARDIS. Indeed, Karn had changed very little since his last visit. Same grey skies, same rocky, barren terrain, even the same dusty smell.

The Doctor sighed. He remembered how it used to be. In the mountains was a large and prosperous mining colony, he recalled visiting it a couple times while he was still in his first body. Now all that was left of the colony was the occasional deserted and dilapidated building, abandoned mining shafts, and their greatest discovery, the Elixir of Life.

Of course, they didn't know what it was when they first stumbled upon the mysterious liquid. By pure chance they discovered that, when drunk, it healed all wounds and diseases in a person. After that breakthrough was made they turned samples of the liquid over to the local healer. This healer happened to be Maren, the former high priestess of the Sisterhood. She, along with a few choice students of hers, investigated this liquid and eventually found its source, the Sacred Flame. They also discovered its potential use as the key to immortality. Maren, knowing of the risks if the Elixir ended up falling in the wrong hands, formed the Sisterhood of Karn to protect the Elixir and the Sacred Flame.

The Time Lords were quick to find out about the Sisterhood and the treasure they had sworn to protect. The Time Lords offered the Sisters a bargain: they would help the Sisters develop their psychic and telepathic abilities to help them defend the Elixir and the flame, practically making the Sisterhood their equals. In return, the Sisterhood would give them a limited supply of Elixir for their own use, not to mention an alliance with one of the most powerful races in the universe. The Sisters were wary of the offer, but accepted in the end. However, they always remained cautious of the Time Lords. Of course, a certain criminal Time Lord by the name of Morbius didn't help matters much. By the time the Doctor had met them, they had lost trust in his race.

The Doctor shook his head of these thoughts, though silently congratulated himself on remembering his Gallifreyan history teacher's lecture about Karn almost word for word.

The Doctor started to carefully make his way down the mountainside. He had been careful to land near enough to the temple that he could find it easily, but far away a sufficient amount that the TARDIS wouldn't be found very easily by anybody other than himself. Ohica's message had put him on his guard.

A few stumbles down the rock face later the Doctor found the main trail leading to the temple. The last time he had walked this path it was almost not even there. So few people ever visited the Sisterhood and the Sisters have little to no reason to leave the temple. Today the path was worn and beaten with fresh footprints. Obviously not footprints of the Sisters, they were far too large to belong to a woman.

"Looks like they had some visitors," the Doctor muttered to himself. His curiosity piped up a few more notches, he continued on the path.

As he walked he also noticed that there were no signs of any footprints of a woman. From this the Doctor assessed that either the Sisterhood were still in the temple, or they escaped through another way. The temple itself was made from the old mineshafts and caves, making the place practically a maze. Only the Sisters knew every single exit from it, and the only visible one to outsiders was the main one, the one which the Doctor was approaching.

It was nothing grand, just a door in the rock. If one took a casual glace over the rock face, the viewer would probably pass right over it since the color of the door matched the rocks surrounding it. The Doctor knew of one more entrance near the back, which he and Sarah had used as an escape route on his last trip here. However, he had decided that it would have been rude to sneak in after being invited. Besides, the main entrance might have heralded more clues to the present situation. In this, the Doctor was not disappointed.

"Hm, no welcome party," the Doctor observed. This entrance usually had at least two guards standing watch. He also noticed, to his dismay, that the thick wooden door showed signs of forced entry.

"Never a good sign," he said to himself. Looking around inside to find no one there, he let himself inside.

The tunnel stayed level for a few meters before starting to slope downward. On the walls were torches, though a few seemed to have gone out, resulting in limited lighting. Here and there dark openings in the walls lead into other tunnels of the temple. As he followed the main tunnel downward, he kept his eyes and ears open for any signs of life. So far it looked like the place had been totally deserted.

The Doctor came across another door, or what was left of one. Looking at the remains, he noticed that this door was a little thicker and stronger than the last.

_A last attempt at defence?_ He wondered. Sure enough, as he walked on, he encountered yet another broken down door, thicker than the last.

_Possibly to slow down the intruders as they made their escape_, he summarized, walking on towards the main chamber.

He didn't get very far when he finally heard some sign of life.

"Who's there?" a male voice yelled. The Doctor turned to see a uniformed man walk out of one of the adjoining tunnels, his rifle raised toward the Doctor. The uniform was fairly simple, navy blue with a silver insignia woven on the sleeve. To his dismay, the lighting was too dim for the Doctor to make out what, exactly, the insignia was. He thought he saw a shape of an animal, possibly a dog, but he couldn't be certain.

"I'm the Doctor," he responded calmly. "And you are?"

"Hands up!" the man ordered.

"Rather interesting name," the Doctor said, keeping his hands down. "I never met anyone called that before. Military name?"

"Shut up!" the man shouted as he came closer, pointing the rifle at the Doctor's face. "Hands up now or --"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as he collapsed. Behind him a Sister was pointing her ring at him. The Doctor recognized the ring as the same kind used by Maren when she blinded Sarah on his last visit.

"Nice trick," he remarked as the Sister lowered her ring. "Now, care to explain what is going on here?"

"We can't here," the Sister said. "There are more like him here, and we will be found out if we stay."

"Fair enough," the Doctor said as he followed the Sister down a dark side tunnel. "Can I at least get a name? The last fellow didn't even give me that courtesy, unless Hands Up really was his name."

"I'm called Shula," the Sister responded. "I was sent by the High One to lead you to our hiding place. Everything will be explained to you there. For now, we must keep quiet. We've already gained too much attention."

"Good point," the Doctor said as continued their journey through the tunnels in silence.


End file.
